


exemption

by sirenseven



Series: props [11]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Dark Bruce Wayne, Good Bro Dick Grayson, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Incest, M/M, Sexual Abuse, Slut Shaming, everybody needs a hug tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:40:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26917513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirenseven/pseuds/sirenseven
Summary: It's an awful plan, but he doesn't have any other kind left. (Negotiate from a position of strength, ha.)
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Bruce Wayne
Series: props [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728181
Comments: 37
Kudos: 133





	exemption

Bruce is typing behind the desk in the study when he approaches. Dick's heart has been stuttering for days, but his hands don't shake. Either he mastered the fury and fear, or he's been so overwhelmed by it his body can no longer conjure a reaction. It doesn't really matter which.

It seems fitting to do this here. This is where Bruce conducts all his non-Batman work in the manor (not to mention a significant part of his brooding). Granted, Bruce's WE “work” most often entails playing up the airheaded rich boy persona, but sometimes he does real work: signs forms, pushes through his charitable measures, juggles stockholders. Negotiates deals.

Bruce doesn't look up when Dick enters, even as the door clicks shut behind him. It's such a petty power play. Dick would roll his eyes, were he capable of sparing an emotion for anything but the conversation ahead.

He stands by the door for a second, in which it becomes clear Bruce intends to continue ignoring him. Dick almost lets him have it. He can sit quietly, try not to chafe under the tension, wait for Bruce to be done. He dismisses the idea right after. If he cedes Bruce the upper hand before they even speak, he has no hope whatsoever. Dick spent one whole semester attending college for the business degree Bruce always wanted him to get, so he knows you're supposed to negotiate from a position of strength.

That's funny.

“Bruce.”

The typing stops. Bruce finally deigns to look up. “I'm working.”

His tone says this is a bad idea. Dick _knows_ this is a bad idea. After the roof, he'd be stupid not to.

“I can see that,” Dick says, proud to maintain a level voice.

“I thought you would have left after Tim,” Bruce interrupts, before he can continue.

“I did.” Dick holds back irritation. He isn't sure which voice is louder: the child in him upset Bruce didn't notice, or the adult in him annoyed Bruce surely _did_ notice and is pretending otherwise. “I just got back.”

He'd sat at the start of the runway after the jet left, like a forlorn puppy waiting for it's family to return. Thirty seconds late, just _seconds_ —

After two hours, it finally occurred to him there was no reason to wait when he'd already lost, and plenty of reason to leave before Bruce returned alone. Jason had apparently already left as well, announcing his own departure for the weekend while Dick wasn't around, to Alfred's clear disappointment. It hadn't been any easier to sleep in Blüdhaven, but at least he'd been able to teach all his classes yesterday and this afternoon.

Tim texted him from the Tower. Safe and sound in San Francisco, surrounded by nigh-invulnerable metas who loved him.

It didn't help any.

“Hn,” says Bruce, glancing back to his laptop.

“Speaking of Tim,” Dick says, before he can lose his nerve. He's not going to lose his temper this time either. He's not going to get emotional. If anyone starts a fight, it will be Bruce and Bruce alone. Dick will be calm and he will stick with a plan.

Thirty seconds late. An hours-long flight, just the two of them, with absolutely nothing in Bruce's way... Dick failed. He _failed_ and at this rate he'll never stop.

It's an awful plan, but Dick doesn't have any other kind left.

Bruce looks between Dick and the laptop once more and then, performatively aggrieved, shuts the latter. He steeples his fingers, barely touching his chin, and raises his eyebrows to signal Dick ahead.

“I want you to stay away from him,” Dick says bluntly.

“Excuse me?”

The picture of fucking innocence. Alright. Dick expected this. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm and polite. “At least do me the decency of not pretending you don't know what I'm talking about.”

Bruce's expression flattens. “You want me to stay away from him,” he repeats, skeptical but at least without the pretense of confusion. “Why?”

The chair opposite Bruce has a high back, corners squared off. Dick grips it tightly. “I'm guessing the fact that you're raping a sixteen-year-old doesn't qualify as a reason?”

Bruce frowns dangerously. “I disagree with your terminology.”

 _Of course you fucking do_.

“Because you're hurting him,” Dick tries. “Because some part of you, in whatever shitty way, does care about him, and you're going to break him. He's too young. He's too good, and innocent, and kind, and too scared to say no. And you're _destroying_ him.”

A lump forms in his throat as he speaks, but it doesn't affect his voice beyond a little extra vehemence. Bruce's expression remains stoic. Dick can't tell if this is working; maybe he still has too much faith, is counting on some shred of a heart that isn't there.

“Or because there's nothing new to get out of him. And you've—you've already seen the best of him,” Dick chokes out. He doesn't care how vile the argument if it works. “Because there's nothing to conquer if he's already been beaten down. And if you let him go now it'll be—it'll be that much better if he comes back himself.”

Bruce leans back in his seat. Dick's hands clench so tight the corners of the wood dig into his palms. There will be creases left over.

“No,” Bruce says.

Just that. Just a no.

“No,” Dick repeats vacantly. This is what he expected. He can't be shocked. This is what he expected.

“Tim wants to be here,” Bruce says. “I want him to be here. You cannot change that.”

This is the part where Dick proves him wrong. Where he announces exactly how he'll put a stop to it and then triumphantly watches Bruce flounder. But there's no grand plan. No hidden ace. Tim may be abused and misguided and manipulated, but Bruce is right about his choice, and there's no way for Dick to stop the pair of them united. Even physically, he's a—a _nuisance_ , at best.

“I'll make it miserable,” he says anyway. “I'll always be in the way. I'll—”

“Be by his side every moment of the day?” Bruce interrupts. With the barest hint of threat, he adds, “Or _mine_? How well has that worked? Are you going to quit your job and move back in? What happens when the money dries up?”

He sounds just like he did when Dick dropped out. Bruce might be criticizing him for poor future planning instead of discussing the abuse of a teenager, for all his voice betrays. Dick is removed enough from those old struggles—or maybe just terrified enough—that the tone no longer grates on him. It's the situation that's tying him in knots.

He doesn't need to earn money because Bruce is a billionaire and happy to provide. But if he stops that earning, it will be to upset Bruce, and Bruce will no longer provide. Dick has slept on fire escapes—not that long ago either, after watching his apartment building blown up for Blockbuster's grudge. He would shoulder homelessness again for this without hesitation. But homelessness wouldn't help if he were unwelcome in _this_ home, too far away to protect anyone.

Catch-22. It's a private hell Bruce built just for him.

Bruce shakes his head, rising. “I have real work to get done, Dick.”

He's being dismissed. No, he's being _ushered out_ , Bruce striding around the desk to lead to the door. Dick turns to watch him approach it, heart hammering like as soon as the knob turns he'll be forced to concede his loss.

“What do you want?”

Bruce halts, looking back at him.

“What can I...” Dick swallows, head dropping. “What do you want to stop? I'll do anything.”

Negotiate from a position of power. He knew that one was a lost cause.

“Dick.” Bruce's voice speaks volumes: that he can't imagine a single thing Dick will offer him is tempting enough to consider, maybe that he doubts the veracity of that “anything” in the first place.

“Please,” Dick says to the carpet.

Whatever Bruce wants. He means it. And he can only really come up with one possible answer to that, if there even is an answer at all. Maybe there's not. Maybe this isn't it. The vile selfish part of him hopes it's not.

Dick softens his expression, looking up beneath his eyelashes. “Anything.”

Bruce's hand rests on the doorknob. Dick is equally terrified he will open it and terrified he won't.

All at once, Bruce billows over to him, soft and graceful, but in the span of a blink. He stops far too close. “You don't mean that,” he says, but it has the faintest hint of—vindicating, revolting—desire.

“I do,” says Dick. “If you leave him alone, I do mean it.” He hesitates, incredibly uncertain how well he's guessed the next bit, but it's important. “Both of them. Jason too.”

He keeps his head tipped low, eyes pulled up. It would be doe-eyed, if he had any idea what he was doing. As it is, he's sure he broadcasts unease and anxiety stronger that anything.

He's not good at this. He's supposed to be; he knows what people say about him when he's just out of earshot—never insults to his character, but sometimes demeaning in their salacious complements. Dick Grayson, the hot one. Only Dick never meant to be the hot one and never tried to use it like this.

The discomfort of hearing those comments has nothing on the discomfort now, as his performance seems to work. Bruce lifts his arm, slow, careful, almost hesitant, and touches Dick's face.

Bruce has touched his face before. Dick has had injuries that needed tending to, face manually tipped into the light. On occasion, Bruce tries to express affection, always more comfortable with actions than words. But Bruce has never touched his face with _intent_ before—or (a more nauseating thought) never with intent Dick was aware of.

He doesn't lean. He can't. Bruce closes the distance for him.

The motion seems to draw out into infinity. Dick's heart tries to break out of his rib cage, his pulse pounding through his skull, his eyes burning. Every part of his body is united in wanting to get _out of here_ , as Bruce looms in.

Their lips slot together. Dick clenches his hands at his sides, stiff as a mannequin. It's the only way he can stop from bolting. If he closes his eyes... No. There's no “if he closes his eyes” caveat. There's no strand of objectivity that lets him determine whether this is a well-executed kiss, no universe in which he can pretend he's kissing anyone else, no comparison he can make to past lovers that won't have him losing it. 

This just his—his dad kissing him. His dad _wanting_ to. Dick's eyes squeeze shut only because the one thing worse than not having complete awareness of his surroundings is _having_ complete awareness, but there's no true reprieve.

Technically speaking, the kiss is soft and chaste, but it's the longest of Dick's life.

He wants to sob in relief when Bruce pulls back. Dick's hands jerk up, before he forces them to clench in Bruce's shirt instead of shoving him. Like this, he's ready to pull Bruce closer instead—or, better yet, hold him still to pummel his face. A hundred punches or so, until Bruce is squinting through blood and the pain in Dick's hand overtakes the sense memory in his mouth. (As if Bruce wouldn't stop him before the fist even connected.) Dick stares at his bunched fists, fighting off the temptation and rushing in his ears, and finally drags his gaze up.

Bruce is alight. His eyes glimmer with energy. These past years, Dick has hardly ever seen him with that kind of passion for any emotion but anger. Usually he only seems so alive around—

God. _God_. And Dick spent the whole time thinking Tim was right. That Bruce just needed a new Robin to brighten things up.

 _Failure_. Failure who didn't even know how horrifically he was failing.

Slight motion makes Dick's arms tense up on instinct, grip on Bruce's shirt barring the man away when he tries to duck in again. Displeasure flits across his face, but he stays where Dick holds him. Doesn't pull back, doesn't lean further. He hovers, listed forward, an inevitable oncoming threat.

“You have to leave them alone,” Dick says, voice somehow still firm. He can literally feel his pulse in his throat, so strong he swears it should be shaking his vocal chords. _He can't, he can't, he can't, he can't_ —

Bruce leans back to stand upright. His eyes remained locked on Dick, but his brow furrows slightly, mouth flat. It's the face he makes for deep thought.

That's good. It’s fucking _awful_ , but it’s good. If Bruce agreed to give it up immediately, he could only be lying and Dick would have failed. Could get out of here—and would have failed, like he's failed Tim for years, probably Jason for years before that. It's a _good_ sign. Dick unclenches his hands slightly. They've finally started trembling, just a hair. He hopes Bruce can't feel it. He still doesn't let go, just in case

Bruce looks away, jaw working. “Okay.”

Dick tightens his grip again. “And I'll pick Tim up tonight,” he presses. Better to test his resolve now.

Bruce frowns, turning back. “Are you expecting me to cut off all interaction? He's still my Robin.”

“You know what I expect,” Dick snaps. Tries to snap. His throat has curdled. “He won't stop being Robin, but you don't—you don't touch him. You don't hurt him.” Dick swallows, completely failing to stifle that pounding pulse, and looks up with hard eyes. “You don't do any of this with him.”

Another twitch of Bruce's jaw. “And you pick him up tonight.”

“And I pick him up tonight,” says Dick. “And he's good at working his own cases, so you _let_ him, and he showers on his own, and you—don't— _touch him_.”

Bruce takes a deep breath, chest rising beneath Dick's fists. His gaze flicks down, and slower back up. Along his body. Dick wishes he didn't notice, hands truly shaking now, throat tight, but it's important to notice. It's important to know what Bruce is thinking. To see the desire in his gaze—and then the decision.

Bruce nods.

“I won't touch him. He'll stay out of this.”

Dick doesn't stop him from leaning in this time.

The second kiss is somehow even worse. Dick turns his gaze up, eyes on the ceiling as Bruce cradles his neck. He's hyper-aware of the inches Bruce has over him, the width of his shoulders and biceps, his weight—like Dick is a four-and-a-half foot kid again, completely dwarfed by him. His hands twitch in Bruce's shirt, then falteringly lower. Bruce pulls in closer, encourages his lips to part, and Dick lets them. It's what he traded for.

He needs to get a hold of himself. Needs to look less... Actually, he doesn't know. Dick is usually the expert on the largely-inscrutable Batman. Thought he was, at least. For once, he has no idea what Bruce wants. Dick can neither make himself a teenager nor Robin again, which is all he has to guess from.

Bruce turns them without warning. Dick stumbles at the first step, feet scraping over the carpet, before catching on. He can follow the motions, try not to think about the door moving further away, the desk closer, the wall encroaching behind him. Just keep breathing through his nose, nice and slow.

He wishes the trace of Bruce's cologne didn't make him think of home. He wishes Bruce would pull back, at least for this moment of motion. It's not that Dick expects things won't only get worse, but the idea that Bruce is so consumed by him he can't stand to separate for a moment is almost as awful as his tongue curling behind Dick's teeth.

Despite that cologne—worse, maybe relying on it—he takes an extra deep breath, lets it swirl down to fill his rib cage, expand his stomach, suffuse through his body. He is in control of his own actions. He chose to cede that control, but he is still the keeper of his own body no matter whose hands grip his waist, whose teeth tease at his lip. It's important to remember. Dick has no illusions about his power in the current moment, not after he spent all his credit to protect his brothers—but these are his limbs, his skin, his ribs, his lungs. He can't forget. He knows how it felt, an alienated mind floating in someone else's vessel, only good for what he could provide, only capable of letting Catalina drag him onward with neither complaint nor care. He can't let himself fall in that hole again.

Bruce presses him into the wall, and Dick allows himself to be moved. Easy. Easy as a new guardian guiding his arms through the motions of a kata. Easy as letting a killer lay him down on a wet rooftop. Easy as sauntering home drunk.

He tries not to cringe at being pinned. The broad strokes are familiar, so he anchors himself in the details. His face should be shoved into the wall, instead of rubbing against Bruce's faint stubble. The large chest should be mashed to his back, not melded against his own, constricting his lungs.

The dialogue is all wrong, too:

“Beautiful,” Bruce breathes, in the gap between kisses, instead of _whore_. “You have no idea...” instead of _how many of them, then? How many have you fucked?_

The hands rubbing soft circles in Dick's waist shift. The less dangerous of the pair slips up and around, between his shoulder blades, arching Dick up to better angle his mouth. The greater threat slides down to palm over his jeans.

That's horribly familiar too. Dick can't remember if it went any further. He doesn't think so. He's not exactly eager to interrogate the memory.

His body shows no interest when Bruce cups his hand around, but it's feeble consolation. Dick knows himself too well by now. If Bruce keeps at it, at some point he will perk up, eager as anything. Like he wanted this. Like he came for Catalina—

 _Stop it_. He _knows_ that's not right. Physical arousal is not a moral judgment; Dick has only been coaching himself on that fact every single day for months. He should have learned it better by now.

Bruce pulls back.

Dick gasps, awareness rushing in alongside air. He blinks rapidly. Late afternoon light filters through the study window, brightening every inch. It feels wrong, like this should be happening in the dark, hidden even from their own eyes. Dick didn't even lock the door—not that there's anyone left to discover this. Just the three of them in the manor now.

The thought of Alfred walking in is simultaneously humiliating and vindictively satisfying.

Bruce cups under his groin, lightly squeezing. No—just humiliating, with a side of horror. There's a terrifying abandon to Bruce's expression, never a good sign. His hand leaps up, at least sparing Dick the terror of potential arousal.

“Take this—” Bruce pants, pulling up the hem of Dick's shirt. _He's_ not supposed to be out of control. Dick losing his calm was a forgone conclusion, but _he's_ supposed to stay cool and collected. “Take this off.”

Dick tries to keep quiet, pressing back into the wall as Bruce tugs up the fabric. The frantic pulse of his chest is impossible to miss as the shirt passes it and he finds himself worrying about Bruce's judgment—an absurd thought for the circumstances. In a surge of energy, Dick jerks up, lifting his arms gracelessly to yank it off himself. Bruce ducks his flailing elbows just in time, catching the shirt to toss it aside

Dick hasn't let someone take off his clothes for him in months. Even falling into others' beds, he always does it himself now. Afraid some hapless one night stand might trigger memories of the last time someone stripped him.

Ironic that for the first time the present is worse, and there's not a flashback in sight. His chest is cold. His lungs are a little tight. Lightheaded. But, to be fair, his adoptive father and guardian of thirteen years is kissing his neck and running reverential hands up his bare ribs so. Dick thinks he'd have a reason for horrified physical responses, with or without preexisting trauma.

Definitely with trauma now. How does Tim—

 _Fuck_ , of all the thoughts he didn't want to have. If there is one mercy Dick has allowed himself, it’s refusing to picture Tim in this situation despite what he knows.

Teeth brush his throat. Dick jerks a hand up to Bruce's hair—to nudge him away, but also to ground himself. By the low sound Bruce makes, he's not complaining. The idea he might enjoy Dick’s participation is nauseating.

Bruce sucks a spot into his neck, then pulls back.

He takes in every inch of Dick with hungry eyes. Their worst fights have gotten vicious, cruel words and the occasional hand raised by Bruce, but even then Dick has never felt so—dehumanized. He’s the decorative pastry in a bakery window. About to be bitten. He presses his palms into the wallpaper, grounded by the rough texture, trying to look a little less shaky.

And then Bruce catches his eye, face softening, and reaches up to cup Dick's face. His thumb rubs circles in the cheek. 

“It's alright,” Bruce says. “You're doing just fine.”

Dick despises the comfort more than anything: there’s still some part of him that retains enough of the stupid child for it to work.

Everything he does here is something someone else doesn't have to do. That thought keeps him going.

Bruce leans in, gentler again. Dick knows exactly when to close his eyes and how to tilt his head. Knowledge he's never going to be able to unlearn. When it ends, Bruce separating their lips but lingering close by, Dick pulls all his courage together.

“What do you want?” he whispers, not blunt this time, though he’s a far cry from seductive.

Bruce draws back enough to see his face. His eyes are dark as they dance across it. Dick knows him well enough—knows whatever part of him it was that he ever knew well enough—to see the gears turning and decision making behind them, but also the wanton urgency.

Another kiss, this one quick to the corner of his mouth. Dick can almost pretend it was a missed kiss on the cheek, not that Bruce was ever affectionate enough for that sort of thing. Then wide palms are gripping his deltoids appreciatively, before slowly pushing them down.

Dick gets the idea. He lowers to his knees.

Thank god Bruce goes for his belt himself, because Dick wouldn't be able to do it. He holds stock still with shallowed breathing as the layers slowly come away from Bruce's groin. This is really happening then. They're really—they're about to have sex. He thinks some part of him knew that before he even entered the study, but no part of him was ever _ready_ for it.

Dick's hands rhythmically clench and flex at his sides, digging through the carpet. He can do this. He can. He has to.

Bruce's pants are open. He's already hard beneath. Whatever remaining sanity had valiantly protected Dick from the knowledge until now dies with more whimper than bang. Then his cock is out. Okay. Okay, they're doing this.

Dick catches himself too late to stop from flinching at the hand on his head. Bruce smooths his hair back gently. Once Dick gets himself to relax, Bruce pulls him off his heels. It's ridiculous to try to ignore the organ right in front of his face, but that's what Dick finds himself doing anyway, gaze averted.

“Have you done this before?” Bruce asks.

Dick's eyes shoot up with a jolt of very old fear. _I just want to know how much of a whore my partner is_. Bruce's face holds none of that vitriol now, but the idea of telling him still—Dick suppresses a shudder.

He has to do this. It's not like he wanted to drag it out anyway.

 _It_ is bigger than he’s used to, both length and girth. Cut. Jutting out. Dick numbly categorizes it like collecting evidence. He can do this; he’s seen penises before. Has, in fact, done this before. He can handle it, as long as he doesn’t have to see Bruce’s face at the same time.

Dick leans forward before Bruce makes him answer.

He takes the head into his mouth without preamble, spark of determination urging him to avoid anything that will prolong the nightmare. A bead of precome spreads over the center of his tongue as it fans around the tip, hitting him with a horrible jolt of flavor. Dick squeezes his eyes shut—and _there’s_ the distance he was hoping for. Down here, away from Bruce’s cologne and stubble and voice, he can almost imagine it’s someone else. A stranger. Another one-night stand. (He never used to have one-night stands. He really didn’t, whatever Bruce thought of him.)

Sucking lightly, Dick acclimates to the width. The hand in his hair tightens for a moment, enough to convey the reaction without sparking any pain, but his partner stays quiet. The silence is a relief.

Down a little further, keep suction, work his tongue beneath the weight. Back up, dragging his lips tight along the shaft. He can do this. He knows how. The hand stays spread through his hair, cupping the back of his head. It doesn’t push, but holds him at the edge of tension.

He keeps his eyes closed as he repeats the motion a few times, gradually taking more and more. It’s not a fast-paced friction by any means, but the cock twitches and dribbles inside his mouth.

His lips catch on a back stroke with a lewd slurping sound, and Dick cringes. He’s never given a blowjob with the main goal to be as quiet and make-believe chaste as possible before, but that’s where his mind sets. Make no noise; take no more action than necessary; betray no response. For minutes, all Dick can hear is the pulse in his ears, and the heavily stifled sounds of his mouth.

Fingers curl around his shoulder and he jerks to a stop with half his mouth full.

“Use your hand,” says Bruce.

Dick’s stomach lurches. Just like that, there’s no pretending. He cracks open his eyes, refuses to look up but still has to see the opened black slacks and button down hem and remaining length of a cock in front of him, the familiar study on all sides. Shivers crack out through his rib cage as he lifts an arm to follow instructions.

He holds the faintest hope of returning to silence until his hand wraps around the base and Bruce rumbles, “Good.”

His fingers flex, but carefully don’t squeeze. Not too much. Not enough to upset things. Just the right amount, reluctantly pumping in tandem with his mouth. He’s not going to throw up, whatever his gut says. Throwing up would be wildly inconvenient right now, and disastrous for proving to Bruce _he can do this_.

Dick is so focused on the delicate mental balance between not checking out and not paying too much attention that he’s completely caught off guard by a sudden push. There’s no warning from the hand; one second he’s moving in a steady rhythm, the next he’s trying to keep from coughing. Dick’s throat constricts on instinct, though the cock stops short of prodding into it. His free hand, loose at his side, clenches onto his own thigh lest he do something horrible like grab Bruce.

Bruce holds him still. Dick breathes sharply through his nose. He’s not choking. His mouth is full, his lips are stretched, his tongue flattened aside, but he’s not choking. He’s okay.

He forces his next breath in slower. As if waiting for the sign, Bruce yanks him back, then thrusts him down again. Dick quickly pulls his hand up, positioning it around the length to stop his mouth from going any deeper than he can handle.

He thought being piloted without active participation would be easier. Instead it makes his chest clench in humiliation and self-disgust. Bruce uses him without question or warning and Dick is along for the ride.

When he’s bitter—or maybe just _honest_ —he knows Bruce has always been an inconsiderate partner in many ways. It’s just never been a sexual partnership before. The man’s breathing becomes audible above him, and all Dick can pray for as his head is tugged back and forth is a quick finish.

It’s not any easier, not participating. Letting himself be dragged along for the ride, _knowing_ he could fight it if he really wanted to, is just as awful.

Bruce grabs his wrist, and a second later a particularly sharp thrust is pushing Dick too deep, blocking hand suddenly gone, and he _is_ choking. Dick pushes against Bruce’s thighs, throat helplessly pumping, chest shuddering in useless exertion, rationality fleeing in favor of the certainty he’s about to suffocate.

The pressure releases. Dick yanks himself back, coughing, shoulders smacking into the wall.

A disappointed hum sounds above him. Dick determinedly stares down. He hates the disappointment already striking him in turn. Psychological. He knows that. He’s spent too long using Bruce’s mood as a reliable barometer of mission success, a childhood using it to judge how pleasant the next few days would be. It’s completely understandable that he can’t just shake it off now. No reason to beat himself up.

Not for disappointing Bruce, at least. For all the mistakes he made that got him here, and all the mistakes he’s making now to overcorrect...

His break ends as soon as it starts. Bruce lightly pulls his chin back up. Dick makes the mistake of letting his eyes follow. Bruce looks down with an expression horrible identical to a million uneventful moments during training and Dick doesn’t know if that’s because he’s completely under control again, hiding it all, or if it’s because in every single one of those moments he was also—he was also thinking about—

Dick sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth, tensing his chest against a sob. His eyes stay dry but sting, dropping back to Bruce’s crotch. Somehow _that_ has become the easier sight.

“Try humming,” Bruce says, pulling him back in.

Dick can feel the muscles in his neck twitching with the desire to turn away, jaw almost locking up before he forces it open. He wants to curl up on the floor, but he lets the length be fed into his mouth instead. He really, _really_ doesn’t want to hum, doesn’t want to follow that instruction like another exercise in the cave.

But he does. Hums as told, with only the occasional hitch. When Bruce touches his throat this time, he’s ready for it, fighting to suppress his gag reflex for an unbearable ten seconds of stillness. Unfortunately, it is a little easier with the hum.

“Good,” Bruce says. “Good boy,” like he’s become a charming pet—or reverted to a very small child.

Bruce pulls back. Then he does it again.

Again.

The fourth time he presses further, abruptly cutting off Dick’s humming along with his airway. His throat rapidly swallows to compensate. Dick keeps his arms tight at his sides, quashes a revolt in his stomach. The briefest grunt from Bruce almost makes it rise up again.

He pulls back, heavy on Dick’s tongue. Dick has just enough time to suck in an instinctive breath before the cock plunges down his throat again. He can hear Bruce’s breathing now, every exhale vocalized with a hint of grunt or groan as he rocks into Dick’s throat, battering open a space not intended for him. Even shallow and steady, the pace fills up Dick’s senses, drag against his throat finally forcing a prickle of tears from his eyes. The hand around his head squeezes tight, and for a moment he swears it might be Blockbuster’s enormous palm about to crush his skull.

Dick chokes in slow motion. Bruce jerks, sharper than before—and comes down his throat, leaving Dick no choice but to swallow.

Or drown. Swallow or drown, and gut instinct says drowning isn’t such a bad idea right now. His body’s desire not to die shouts louder, though, and Dick sucks down as Bruce twitches and releases inside his mouth. A good decision in hindsight, because despite the mortification of this moment, he can imagine few deaths more horrible than drowning _on his dad’s come_.

Bruce pulls back before he’s quite done, spurting a final time in and on Dick’s mouth. Dick presses his lips together, trying and failing not to taste the liquid inside. His first instinct is to spit it the fuck out. His second is that Bruce would be pissed to get it on his carpet.

The moment where he realizes what he has to do and is forced to commit to the action is worse than the swallow itself.

 _Burying the evidence_ , Dick thinks.

He has half a second to pant at the carpet before Bruce pulls him up to his feet. Dick almost makes the mistake of jerking back from his hands, before realizing they’ve just come to cradle his face. Dick’s eyes dance: the carpet, his shaking hands, the door, Bruce’s chin, the curtains. The sunlight is too bright. He thought that before, but now it’s really too bright, jarring and _wrong_.

He finally looks up to Bruce’s face, what he knows the man is waiting on. Bruce looks happy. Eyes still dark, breath still a little heavy in exertion, and happy.

A thumb smooths over Dick’s mouth, cleaning off a sticky drop he didn’t realize was there as he grimaces. Bruce nudges it between his lips, onto his tongue. and Dick still manages a moment of genuine incredulity at the absurd expectation, before he follows implied orders and sucks it off.

Bruce smiles, taking back his hand to comb it through Dick’s hair. There’s a second’s hesitation where Dick thinks he might be about to get a compliment, and then Bruce pulls him in for a kiss instead.

Typical. Avoiding words for actions, expecting that everyone will read his mind based on that. Is Dick supposed to get approval and contentment from this gesture, or just further desire and _ownership_? Replace a kiss with a stiff shoulder pat, and he’s back in his teenage years.

Teenage Dick would have started yelling by now, though. Teenage Dick, it turns out, had a lot of excellent points, if only he’d known how to properly express them.

“Let me...” Bruce murmurs

Dick starts at a sudden touch to his groin. He pulls back, though he has scant inches before hitting the wall. He’s not hard. But he’s not—he’s disgusted to admit—entirely soft either. He can’t cope with that, desperately hopes Bruce won’t make him, not after what just happened.

“You don’t have—” Dick clears his hoarse throat. “You don’t have to do that.” Like he’s cool and chill and declining an offer, instead of trembling with nerves.

He holds his breath in Bruce’s pause.

The hand drops.

Dick exhales. “I should probably...start getting the plane ready?” He hates how it comes out as a question, but he knows better than to upset Bruce after all the costs he’s already suck. If Bruce wants him to stay longer...he stays longer. In reality, he has at least an hour before he needs to get a move on to pick up Tim, but he’d like to pencil in some time to hyperventilate in a bathroom first.

To his surprise, and rib-shaking relief, Bruce steps back. “Of course,” he says softly. “Take the time you need.”

He gives Dick another dragged-out once-over, and then slowly turns. Dick doesn’t move. It’s a horrible place to be, messy and shirtless and against the wall, but he can’t even get himself to tip his head off the surface until Bruce slides behind his desk. With the man seated once more, like this never happened, Dick finally finds the impetus to duck for his shirt.

He hastily redresses, brushes at his knees, combs through his hair more to chase out the sensation of someone else’s hand than in any real hopes of fixing it.

Bruce reopens his laptop, calm and steady in presence. Dick has some anxious urge to wait for another word, a confirmation he’s been dismissed. He wants to bolt, but the idea of dragging himself this far over broken glass only to fumble in the end zone is more terrifying than anything. Dick fiddles with the hem of his shirk, struck by the childish urge to pretend he has more polishing up to do just so he can wait out Bruce’s next words without having to ask.

Small mercies; Bruce looks up on his own, and nods.

Okay. Dick makes for the door.

“Dick.”

He stops, an awful reverse of their positions earlier (and look how well that ended).

“Don’t be a stranger.”

Dick looks over his shoulder, catching Bruce’s eye. He understands the message clearly. The drive from Blüdhaven is long enough to be annoying, but without a sword hanging over his head in worry any delay could make the difference for Tim, it’s a drive easily made. People commute between the two cities every day.

He can keep his job. He can keep his apartment. He can keep his patrol, his ever-evolving understanding of the city, keep Blüdhaven safe. 

And he's going to be spending a lot of time in Gotham.

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> Next time: what a wonderful time (to be a very horrible man)


End file.
